Getting a flu shot remains the best defence against a flu virus that has been labelled a 'health hazard' in the Fraser Health Authority region, officials say.Dario Ayala
/ The Gazette

Public Health nurse Jane Stewart prepares a flu shot at hte Burnaby Public Health clinic on Friday, January 4, 2013. On Tuesay, Fraser Health has issued an alert declaring this season's flu a health hazard, with an outbreak of the virus and flu-related fatalities the highest in years.Les Bazso
/ PNG

Wash your hands frequently: The most common way for flu bacteria to travel is on our hands, since we consantly touch our eyes, mouth and face. Handwashing is the simplest, most effective way to stop the spread of the virus. Fraser Health has issued an alert declaring this season's flu a health hazard, with an outbreak of the virus and flu-related fatalities the highest in years.THOMAS LOHNES
/ AFP/Getty Images

Getting a flu shot will help with flu symptoms, even with the severe H3N2 virus making the rounds in B.C., according to B.C. Centre for Disease Control official Bonnie Henry. Fraser Health has issued an alert declaring this season's flu a health hazard, with an outbreak of the virus and flu-related fatalities the highest in years.Dario Ayala
/ The Gazette

METRO VANCOUVER - The flu is so bad in the Fraser Health region this year that officials have declared it a health hazard and are invoking special measures to fight its spread.

The Fraser Health Authority says there have been twice as many influenza outbreaks so far this winter than the last three years combined — and more than three times the number of deaths among people in residential care facilities.

The authority’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Paul Van Buynder, says the “unusual step” of declaring a health hazard under the Public Health Act allows the use of extra measures to help protect the community’s most vulnerable residents. Those include requiring visitors to a residential care or assisted living facility to wear a mask and wash their hands if they have not had a flu shot.

“We want to protect our most vulnerable members of the community who are the frail, elderly. They can’t fight it off as easily,” Van Buynder said Tuesday.

He said he couldn’t provide exact numbers of seniors who have died so far since seniors in long-term facilities are passing away all the time for different reasons.

As soon as two or three residents come down with a serious respiratory illness, a care facility will typically start all the residents on anti-influenza medication to try to minimize serious illness or death.

“In tracking the death rate, we see it is four times the rate (of previous years),” he said.

It’s a different story in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, where flu cases are higher than average but within a normal range.

There have been six long-term care facilities in the region that have experienced an influenza outbreak. While higher than the previous year, “it’s nothing out of the normal range,” said Dr. Patricia Daly, Vancouver Coastal Health’s chief medical health officer.

“It’s not the worst flu season we’ve had (in Vancouver). The past two years were very mild seasons,” she said, adding there was a pandemic in 2009.

The surge in flu cases has hit other North American cities as well. In Boston, the mayor declared a public health emergency and the city is offering free flu shots after outbreaks led to overcrowding in hospitals and health clinics.

The best defence remains a flu shot, with new data suggesting the measure cuts in half the risk of getting sick enough from flu to require medical care.

“It seems that this vaccine is cutting your risk of influenza in half, which ... is still important protection, especially if you’re a high-risk person,” said Dr. Danuta Skowronski, a flu expert with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control who oversees the surveillance network from which the data was drawn.

And doctors caring for such patients shouldn’t assume that because they got vaccinated they won’t contract influenza this winter, she said. For these people, use of antiviral drugs may be warranted if they become ill.

Influenza activity is not the same in every region, both Daly and Van Buynder noted.

“We know influenza activity can be very local and it spreads in communities,” Daly said.

The number of people heading to emergency departments with the flu is also higher in the Fraser Health region.

“We had 1,500 presenting with the flu in a four-week period ending in December and these were people who were classified as serious and needed to be there. The highest we’ve had before was less than 1,000,” said Van Buynder.

He said they are trying to separate people in the waiting rooms of emergency departments who have flu symptoms. Anyone coughing is given a mask to wear.

Signs in the Fraser Health region ask people to wash their hands, but there are no plans to require security to be on hand to try to ensure it happens, he said.

“We’re confident people will want to do the right thing.”

At the entrance to Vancouver General Hospital on Tuesday, there was a security guard standing behind a table with multiple bottles of hand sanitizers. Daly said that extra precaution is just part of their quality initiative and not directly related to any additional preventive measure to keep influenza outbreaks down.

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